
March 31
...serving up your daily dish.
Next week, terrorists will unleash the pneumonic plague in Union County ... and victims will rush to Mountainside Hospital for treatment.
Well, not real terrorists or the real pneumonic plague or real victims. It's all part of a disaster simulation called TOPOFF3 mandated by the Office of Homeland Security.
Mountainside will participate in the weeklong drill for two days -- next Tuesday and Wednesday. And preparations have been going on for months.
Erroll Brudner, who heads security at the hospital, said Mountainside expects between 20 to 50 actor-patients during those two days. "Some will have sympoms similar to the disease. Some will be the worried well. Some will be non-symptomatic," he explained. "They'll be examined, put in isolation rooms."
Mountainside is bringing in extra emergency doctors for the two days so that regular emergency department traffic won't be disrupted.
Although Mountainside and the other drill participants know what's coming, Homeland Security will throw some curve-balls during the exercise to keep everybody on their toes. Known as "prompts," these are scenarios that would intensify the emergency -- like a traffic tie-up that prevents ambulances from reaching the hospital, or news that the emergency department has become contaminated.
"It's Murphy's Law," Bregner said. "A lot of things can go wrong."
During the exercise, an emergency press briefing room will be set up at Mountainside's Nursing School, across the street from the hospital's main entrance. Mountainside's communications staff will be challenged to create two sets of news releases as the event goes on -- real releases explaining the exercise and fake ones detailing the pneumonic plague outbreak as if it were real.
The stop-sign pictured above, by the way, is real. It reads:
STOP
If you believe that you have been exposed to a biological agent or chemical agent, notify the POLICE OFFICER or SECURITY OFFICER outside of the Emergency Department and follow the officer's directions. If you have a suspicious item, secure the item in the vehicle you have arrived in and proceed to the Emergency Department. PLEASE DO NOT BRING SUSPICIOUS ITEM(S) INTO THE HOSPITAL.Thank you for your cooperation.